FEATURES OF ALUMINUM POWDER PAP-2 GRANULATION IN THE TECHNOLOGY OF Al–Al2O3 POWDER COMPOSITE WITH LAYERED STRUCTURE

Modern scientific technical information implies great prospects for the use of Al–Al₂O₃ based composite materials (CM). The papers by the Materials Science Department of Moscow Aviation University have shown the reactive air sintering of highly-dispersed PAP-2 powder blanks to be a promising way of obtaining the aluminum-base CM. However, it is necessary to solve a number of technological problems to apply the above technique such as the lack of fluidity and extremely low apparent density. The paper studies and suggests various methods of PAP-2 aluminum powder granulation with their physical and chemical aspects described. Various technological approaches to PAP-2 aluminum powder granulation have been used based on such process operations as powder heating in air followed by isothermal aging at 350 °C, adding water solution of sodium-silica glass, mechanical processing of powder in high-energy planetary mill, its heat treatment in vacuum at 650 °C initiating the stearin saponification reaction on the surface of the PAP-2 flakes followed by the formation of the organic component – plasticizer. It is found that the proposed methods of industrial  PAP-2 powder granulation can modify its composition and structure as well as improve and vary technological characteristics of the original powder. The highest value of apparent density (up to 1,25 g/cm³) is achieved when using mechanical treatment of the original powder in a high-energy planetary mill with the formation of rounded granules 50–150 μm in size. The most producible and cost-effective technique is based on initiating the chemical reaction of «stearin saponification» on the surface of powder particles (with apparent density of approximately 0,4 g/cm³).

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